Bounty Hunters and Beyond
by HeartsForHire
Summary: A blind bounty hunter, Terezi Pyrope, tries to make do with a new ally, Karkat Vantas. All the while tracking her big-sister and getting to the root of her problems. AU.
1. What Happened? Ch1

**Disclaimer: I do not own Homestuck or anything else mentioned in this fanfic.**

**This is going to be kind of different. This will follow nothing from Homestuck, except for using the characters, kind of like putting them in a whole other story. It'll be kind of like Rp'ing I guess.**

**H~**

The shot of a fully upgraded plasma buster sounded throughout the thick forest. The sound was loud and jarring to the finely trained ears of one bounty hunter making her camp in a tree. She would have to set her camp up faster than she thought.

Setting up camp wasn't the biggest priority, **it** just being a sleeping bag tied to a tree limb, but the trap was already finished and she needed a good place to watch the whole thing unfold.

The plasma buster's shot was the warning that her colleague and her had agreed upon previously. Her side-kick, as she'd been used to calling her, would chase the villain out of hiding and into the path of her well-planned trap.

Or traps...she had gone kind of crazy with their budget on this mission. Setting everything from trip-wires to barb wired nets out there. Basically a fucking mine-field.

Her favorite trap wasn't the deadly bag of badgers, or even the hidden paralysis viper. No, this bounty hunter's favorite was the horrifying ambush of genetically altered bees. The GABs have dangerous poison that could trigger someones greatest fears in the back of their minds and bring it forward, some stings have even been known to permanently blind the victim.

Overkill yes, but it was so much fun to see how the villains react to their nightmares being brought forward. There was no room for sympathy for those who did horrible things.

Sitting in the tree on her teal sleeping bag, she couldn't wait. This man had it coming. He had been sent to court on the accusation of molesting his sixteen-year-old daughter. But, right before his trial, he had went crazy or something and killed his wife of 21 years and ran away into the forest.

Yeah, this shit bag had it coming.

Screams pierced the plain and Terezi saw the man break through the thick foliage, scrambling to get away from the insane cat girl that was chasing him.

Oh, this was her favorite part! The first trap he stepped onto was normally made to make look stupid as hell. Terezi wasn't a patient woman, so she had put the GAB trap up first.

Nepeta always stopped chasing the bad guys when they got close to the 'mine-field', but something was wrong this time. It was as if she didn't know the first trap was coming. Just like the bounty, she shocked and surprised.

Terezi had forgotten to tell her about the last minute preparations...

'**Dammit!**' Terezi leaped down from the tree and to her side-kick's aid before the bees were able to touch her.

"Nepeta!" She tackled her and covered her body from the stings. Her leather trench coat had protected her from most of the bee stings, but at least three had found their way to her uncovered neck.

Numb, that was what the first one made her feel like. Calm before the storm she guessed. Then the second one, burned through her veins like everyone of her blood vessels were on fire. Still covering Nepeta's body with her shaking one.

The third was the worst. It begun the hallucinations, warping the world around her. She couldn't tell what was happening, she was being pulled, yelled at, and pushed to the ground by Nepeta. Or what she thought was Nepeta.

Her world was spinning and filled with pain. The slapping and shaking wasn't helping so much.

"Ter, snap out of it! Come on!" Nepeta was shouting, or was it her? Her face continued to be hideously morphed until it turned into an eight-eyed, furry face, with a couple of pincers on the jaw.

She made some sound between a shout and an anguished scream. Terezi struggled to push her off, but her limbs weren't working and she was quickly pushed back.

"Terezi, come on stop!" Nepeta's voice turned distorted as well. Going deeper and higher in the mid points of her sentences, "You're hallucinating! Whatever you're seeing isn't real!"

Nepeta continued to try and talk her partner out of this; terrified as much she was. Then Terezi's body went limp and Nepeta stopped screaming at her, picking her friend up and throwing her over her shoulder. Ignoring the middle-aged man shouting in the barbed wired net being attacked by GABs.

**H~**

"_Oh, Terezi...isn't you're birthday?"_

"_Yes, of course!"_

"_I'll have to get you something special then, huh?"_

"_Oh please big sis, please!"_

"_Don't worry, I have something in mind..."_

A young woman woke up at dawn in a cold sweat. Something was wrong, she was in a hospital bed and her previous dream had only been in sounds and smells. She couldn't see anything in her hospital room. In fact, she couldn't see anything at all.

Rubbing her eyes frantically, trying to see if the problem was easily fixable. It wasn't.

'**What happened to me?**' Terezi wasn't processing anything. She didn't remember what happened last, except for a worried scream that sounded like Nepetas.

"Nepeta!" Terezi tried to sit up but was stopped by Nepeta's calming hands.

"The doctor said not to move, or you'll spread the poisons." Nepeta had stayed in the chair next to the bed all night; waiting to see her friend awake.

Hearing the cat girl reassured her and she calmed down, "Wh-what happened Nepeta? Why can't I see?"

Nepeta looked down in sadness but kept her voice calm, "I'll tell you..."

**H~**

A young man stood in the market place owned by his grandmother and grandfather and turned one of the used on in the corner. The news was on.

"_...On further investigation on the capture of the criminal, Harry Turner, he was found last night in a barb-wire net surrounded by genetically altered bees._" The anchor woman shuffled her notes, "_No news on who could have captured him..._"

Karkat Vantas turned the T.V off and huffed. Why does no one ever mention bounty hunters? Bounty hunters were behind all of the recent captures of criminals of course! When he was little he always aspired to be a famous bounty hunter, but his mother and father didn't want him to at all.

Now that they were dead because of a horrible car-crash on his 7th birthday; nothing was really stopping him from becoming one. Then again, living with his grandparents, everything was so much stricter.

"Karkat! Back to work!" A small paper ball hit him on the back of the head, "And pick that up too!"

"Yes Grandma..." Karkat sighed and picked up his broom once again, starting to sweep. Drifting off to a world with more adventure and less tragedy then the one he was living in now.

**H~**

**So that's the end of the first chapter! Hope you liked it, review please~**


	2. Blind? Ch2

**Disclaimer: I do not own Homestuck, or anything else mentioned in this fanfic**

**Next chapter, hope you like it!**

**H~**

**(Two years later...)**

Karkat's life had been going nowhere fast. Still working as a janitor at the market, still lusting after adventure, still sad and still lonley.

His friend, Sollux Captor, was supposed to be coming over soon. With the vagueness that he usually totes around, it could be any moment.

Then the paper balls come, "Karkat! Clean that up!"

Karkat growled underneath his breath, "Yes Grandma..." He still had to work on his 18th birthday.

**H~**

Sollux Captor had been preparing a special gift for his friends birthday. It wasn't going to be sentimental, no that wasn't Sollux;s thing. It was going to be something this asshole had been bitching about for years. Him and that present were walking down the street to the market now.

"Hey Therezi? Are you thure you want to go?" Sollux was unsure, Terezi had been a very close friend ever since kindergarten, and he hadn't seen her in at least three years.

"Yeah of course, Thollucks!" Terezi pushed up her red glasses and took another sip of her silver flask.

"Thop makiing fun of my liithp! Are you even old enough to driink?"

Terezi pondered the question for a moment, stopped on the sidewalk, and took out her license. She held it for awhile then said, "Well gee, Sollux, I don't know. I can't really make out my age on this thing, much less anything else."

Sollux reeled back, "Oh, yeah, thorry...ii forgot."

She put an arm on his shoulder and smiled, "No probs, Thollucks! I got over it a long time ago."

"Yeah, thath why ii piicked you for Karkat'th prethent, not Nepeta."

"Now that I think about it, yeah, Nepeta wouldn't make a very good mentor, would she?" Terezi giggled at the thought of Nepeta trying to teach someone.

They were infront of the store now marked: Tech Misc., and Sollux stopped Terezi before she opened the door.

"What?"

"Do you really want two do thith?"

Terezi looked at her psychic friend, puzzled, "What do mean by that? I already told you I would."

"What ii mean ith that ii know thith guy, really well, and he can be pretty...eathy two aggravate. Ethpeciially wiith your way of 'theeiing'"

"Don't worry about me Sollux. I'm not sensitive about that anymore. And if I were, why would I would I hang out with Nepeta?" Nepeta was always playfully teasing Terezi about her blindness.

Sollux sighed, "Thure, ii gueth. Let me go iin firth, though."

"Aye, aye, capn'!"

**H~**

**(Karkat's P.O.V)**

"Hey KK, ii'm here!" The bell on the door rung when Sollux came in.

"Finally where the hell have you been? It's bee-" I froze, "Sollux, who the hell is that?"

"Oh! Let me interduth you to Therezi Pyrope, bounty hunter." Sollux unceremoniously announced.

I couldn't speak, I was too stunned.

Terezi leaned over and whispered to Sollux, "Is he normally like this?"

"No. Um, KK?"

I walked closer to the bounty hunter, observing her. She was just a bit taller than me, with medium-length black hair. She was wearing a light brown jacket and Black jeans. Her silver flask held tightly in her hand.

This was her, the bounty hunter I had read about.

"The Terezi Pyrope?"

She looked at me weird and ran her hand through her hair, "Is that what they're calling me nowadays? I had hoped to get some cool nickname after I went blind." She shrugged, "Oh well."

Wait, what? Blind? The Terezi Pyrope that took down the biggest of the bad guys with cunning skill and technique, was blind? Then, I noticed the way her nose twitched constantly as if using it to figure something out. And behind her red glasses were vacant yellow eyes.

This can't be true. The bounty hunter I had read about when since I was 15, and eventually came to idolize, was blind? Not that I really mind, it actually makes her better for overcoming her handi-cap, but it's kind of a huge shock.

The disabled are usually looked down on in this society, what isn't normal is to be feared, what is feared is to be hated. It isn't a really big deal for other cultures for the disabled to be so revered and known. But, in this culture it's kind of a **big fucking deal**.

"Hey, are you alright?" Terezi snapped her fingers infront of me. I didn't even know I spaced out.

"Yes, I'm fine...Sollux, can we talk?"

"Uh, yeah thure KK." We went to the back room of the store where most of the broken items are stored.

"Why is she blind? When did this happen? And, why is she here?" Rapid-fire questioning never fails.

"Whoa, thlow down, man, what'th your actual problem?"

"I want to know what's going on!" I raised my voice above a whisper, which I don't even know why we were whispering in the first place.

He held out his hands and said, "Alriight, alriight. She'th your prethent Karkat, you're alwayth biitchiin' about how you'll never amount to thomethiing great and ii, beiing the great freiind that ii am, got you a mentor."

"A mentor?" I was confused, what'd he mean about mentor? A bounty hunter mentor?

"You're welcome. And, ath for the bliind thiing...you'll have to athk her yourthelf."

"Karkat! Who is this young lady!" Oh shit, grandma.

**H~**

**(Normal P.O.V)**

"I didn't know there was going to be five mouths to feed...I'll go get more!" Karkat's grandmother put the three plates down on the table and ran back to the kitchen to get two more.

The three sat down and began to eat while waiting for the old woman.

Karkat was looking at Terezi closely, she sniffed the air and started to drool, "Karkat, right? Your grandmother is amazing at cooking! Is this pasta?"

He was shocked at how energetic she was. Karkat had beaten it into his mind that bounty hunters were stoic and cool, not excited and hyper. He was also shocked at her accurate prediction of the food only by scent, "Yes she is, and yeah, this is pasta..."

"KK, ii don't know why you're beiing tho cautiiouth about your new mentor. You're thuck with her."

"Mhmmh" Terezi's mouth was too busy being stuffed to form a coherent sentence.

His mentor huh? Karkat looked at the blind bounty hunter, frowning at her lack of manners. No, this isn't at all what he thought a bounty hunter would be like. And he couldn't tell if he liked the idea of having a mentor like this, or if he absolutely hated it.

His grandmother came back into the dining room and sat down with his grandfather. He just started to dig into his food when a balled up napkin hit his head.

"Karkat! Clean that up, please!"

Karkat growled and ran a hand through his mussy gray hair, "Yes grandma..."

At the end of the table, Terezi was giggling between bites.

Karkat changed his mind. He would hate having a mentor like Terezi. But he was stuck with her, he guessed.

**H~**

**Geez another chapter! I wish I could update this fast everyday! R&R~**


	3. Training Time! Ch3

**Disclaimer: I do not own Homestuck, or anything else mentioned in this story.**

**Hey, I just wanted to say that you're probably the best people I've ever had the pleasure of being in contact with! Thanks~**

**H~**

"All right, training time!" Terezi dropped one of Karkat's boxes on the gray carpeting and it made a horrible crunching noise.

Karkat looked up from one of his few possessions he was unpacking, "Training? What the hell do you mean 'training'? We're not even done unpacking yet!" He gestured to the measly three boxes around him and realized that it was a badly formed excuse.

He was just really nervous about Terezi's training regime. What would a psychotic blind girl do for training? The thought made him shudder.

"Karkles, Karkles, Karkles...you'll realize soon enough just how big the difference between being able to swim well, and being able to swim fucking amazing is! Especially when hunting a mad scientist on a boat...surrounded by sharks."

He looked at her, trying to push the interest in her story down, "You're fucking with me, right?"

She only grabbed her walking cane and ran down the expansive halls to who the hell knows where, "He he he..." Her maniacal laughter faded away.

The young man sighed and got off his knees, observing the work done already. His new room in Terezi's house was nearly finished. His bed had sheets, and his drawer had clothes. All that was left was a couple family photos. **'Why can't she just wait five damn minutes to finish one fucking job!'**

Karkat jogged down the hall, leaving the bland looking room.He needed to hurry to catch her, easily losing her in this huge house.

**H~**

"So, explain it to me again, how the hell will this work?"

Karkat was standing in Terezi's backyard. And looked around while waiting to get further instruction. The place was huge! Probably even bigger than his old backyard times three. There were trees everywhere, and he thought he heard a waterfall somewhere of in the distance...

With Terezi, he wouldn't be surprised. She always had strange things in her house that a normal blind person wouldn't have any use for. Like books, or pictures. In fact, half of what was in her house didn't make sense for a blind person to own.

"Like I said, you put on this camouflage and hide in the forest while I try to impale you with these flaming arrows." Then again, Terezi wasn't a 'normal' anything, "If you catch fire there's a pool around here somewhere." She paused, expecting an answer.

Karkat was fucking speechless. He knew it was useless. He knew he shouldn't have put his hopes of becoming a bounty hunter on one batshit crazy, blind, bounty hunter!

Why was he so stupid?

"No. No, no, no, NO!" Karkat crossed his arms, "This is insane! Are you fucking crazy? Wait don't answer that. Of course you are!"

Terezi put on a practiced pout and sniffed the air, "Karkat you're acting like a baby. Fine, don't wear the camo, but I still get to shoot you with the flaming arrows."

When he still didn't respond she sighed and said, "Fine, but if you win you'll get a prize..." Temptations, temptations...

This piqued his interest, "W-what prize? Not like I'm gonna do it anyways..."

Another shit-eating grin from Terezi and he knew there was no backing out, "I'll teach you the biggest secret I know."

She sounded like a fucking kid!

"Are you kidding me? The biggest secret you know isn't worth getting my ass burnt over and over again."

"It's something you've been wondering about, you know, like how I haven't been arrested or executed for my 'disability'" She put air quotes around the word 'disability' for some reason.

Now that she said it, that particular question _was_ bugging him rather hard. He had studied the government closely, and knew so much about the laws he thought the bounty hunters followed. Could he have missed one? Was there some hidden law about disorders he hadn't discovered yet? In fact, why wasn't she executed?

"You can't tell me you're not interested. I can practically smell it on you." In his pondering, Karkat didn't notice how close she had gotten. Terezi licked his cheek, dangerously close to his mouth.

"T-ter...Terezi..." He wasn't afraid, just confused. Why was she licking him? He had seen her lick things before, paintings, books, etc, but he had never been licked _by_ her. This was definitely new.

Then she whispered, "Hey, Karkat, just so you know: You taste delicious." That was it.

Karkat was gone, running towards the woods. He didn't know why he was so jumpy around her. She was older than him, yeah. By about three years. But, that didn't seem to matter. Was he attracted to her? No. He couldn't be. For fucks' sake, they met two days ago!

Then the flaming arrows came. One hit the tree right to him, '**What the fuck!**' Karkat sped up, weaving through trees, trees, and more trees. Unknowingly, he had just started the training.

"Oh shit!"

**H~**

"Hmm?" Sollux Captor sat in his living room, sipping a cup of lemon tea, watching a lifetime movie at four in the afternoon. Something about a killer rapist and an abusive husband. Very predictable. Very addicting.

He had heard Karkat's screams of panic and he felt like it was partially his fault for introducing him to Terezi. But, seriously, it was probably for the best.

And, he didn't have time to even contemplate feeling guilty. The show was back on and the killer was going to be revealed! Why was he so excited about this?

'**Thorry, Karkat. You're on your own.**'

**H~**

**Yay! I don't why I want to present Sollux as a romantic softy. I can't help it, I guess!**


End file.
